Katerina Rowe, a Deacon at the church in the sleepy village of Eyam, has a fulfilled life. She is happily married to Leon and her work is rewarding. But everything changes when she discovers the body of a man and a badly beaten woman, Beth, in the alleyway behind her husband’s pharmacy.Drawn to the young woman she saved, Kat finds herself embroiled in a baffling mystery.

When Beth’s house is set on fire, Kat offers the young woman sanctuary in her home and soon the pair begin investigating the murder, with some help from Beth’s feisty grandmother, Doris. But neither the police, nor Leon, nor the criminals want Kat and Beth looking into their affairs and the sleuths quickly find themselves out of their depth…

Can Kat and Beth solve the mystery and walk away unscathed?

If I have to write a one line review for this book I’ll say it’s a breath of fresh air in the present gloomy, mundane crime fiction weather. After so long I read a mystery novel of sleuth sub-genre, and that too such an pleasurable read. Within a couple of chapters, we enter into the world of Katerina Rowe, aka Kat, a Deacon in her tiny village of Eyam, Derbyshire, and Beth Walters, aka Mouse, a young girl doing escort jobs to raise money to travel the world. Their paths cross when Kat finds a dead man and a heavily injured Beth in the alleyway behind her husband’s pharmacy. For some reason Kat feels she needs to be with Mouse and help her out in the situation, and I as a reader felt the same. There was an under-current thread that was pulling me into their lives and making me stay there. When Kat and Mouse, with the help of Mouse’s nan Doris, take matters into their own hands, is when the story gets very interesting. During this time, the conversations between the three ladies are a delight to read, making the story feel real. The writing and the flow of story is as smooth as a hot knife on a block of butter. I couldn’t help but melt away with this book and fuse myself into the lives of the ladies.

Murder Undeniable is an amazing start to a trilogy, though I pray I get to see more of Kat, Mouse and Doris. And if I had a paperback copy of this book, it could’ve definitely be sitting next to my Agatha Christie collection, that’s how amazing this book was for me.

Final Verdict:

Murder Undeniable by Anita Waller gets 5 out 5 stars from me.

About the Author:

Anita Waller was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in 1946. She married Dave in 1967 and they have three adult children.
She began writing when she was around 8 years of age, writing ‘compositions’ at junior school that became books with chapters.
In 1995 she sent Beautiful to a publisher and as they reached the contract stage the publisher went into liquidation. As a result, the book was consigned to the attic in dejected disgust but in 2013 it was dragged out again for an enforced complete re-type. The original was written on an Amstrad 8256 and the only thing that remained was one hard copy.
Anita is not a typist and it was painfully reworked over two years, submitted to Bloodhound Books who, within three days of reading it, offered her a contract. 31 August 2015 saw its release into the wide world.
Following the outstanding success of Beautiful, she began a sequel on 27 December 2015, finishing it on 19 March 2016. The new novel, Angel, was launched on 7 May 2016.
34 Days followed, with its launch in October 2016. This was a huge success, particularly in the United States. While this, her third book in the psychological thriller genre, was flying out in all directions, she began work on her fourth book.
Winterscroft was a change in genre. It is a supernatural tale, set in Castleton, Derbyshire, and its release date was February 2017.
While she was writing Winterscroft, it became very clear from reading reviews that a sequel to 34 days was needed, and she began work on that. Bloodhound Books launched Strategy, on 10 August 2017.
Her next book, launched February 2018 and entitled Captor, is a psychological thriller, set exclusively in Sheffield. It was an instant success, both in the UK and the US.
Then along came Game Players… once more set in Sheffield, the story involves a group of six children who have each other’s backs to a remarkable extent. The darker, criminal side of Sheffield is explored, with the book launching 18 May 2018.
Malignant arrived in the world on 10 October 2018, her eighth book in three years.
And now Anita is working on her first series, the Kat and Mouse trilogy, set in the beautiful Derbyshire village of Eyam. The first in the series, Murder Undeniable, launches 10 December 2018.
In her life away from the computer in the corner of her kitchen, she is a Sheffield Wednesday supporter with blue blood in her veins! The club was particularly helpful during the writing of 34 Days, as a couple of matches feature in the novel, along with Ross Wallace. Information was needed, and they provided it.
Her genre is murder – necessary murder.